Grammar, Thy Name is, Well, Grammar

I have been informed, multiple times, that my use of the comma can be quite horrifying. I readily admit that my grammar education is sadly lacking and I’m not sure how to go about fixing that. I never diagrammed sentences. I never learned an adjective prepositional phrase from a subordinate conjunction. And yet I have an English degree and my Super Secret Day Job involves copious amounts of wordsmithing. My use of the comma tends to be a by-the-seat-of-my-pants thing, with commas thrown in to slow my headlong progress.

In an effort to fix this lack in my education, I’ve been slogging through the following:

• The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
• Woe is I by Patricia O’Connor

And slog really is the word for it. Is there anything more boring in the world than a discussion of punctuation and grammar? Okay, statistics. And watching grass grow.

But I press on. I’m hoping to find an on-line course with music, juggling, and rhymes to help me remember the rules.

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